Crafting Writers, Ch. 7-9 & App. F

Hale points put so many good references for our teaching the craft of writing I'm not sure where to begin.  I was most inspired with Chapter 8's lesson about researching strengths in a conference.  Hale mentions Stephen Peter's book, "Do You Know Enough About Me to Teach Me?" as a reference for ways to capture and inspire students.  Many times a student just needs a teacher to care enough about them and their work to make a positive difference with their internal motivation.  We saw this with one of our field experience teachers, you could tell that she was encouraging and supporting her students.  With this support system in place, her students will be writing to their potential.  An important next step that Hale mentioned was to also teach the next step. This reminds me of the Zone of Proximal Development that we learned in our Child Development class - it is the gap between what a student has already learned and what he or she can actually achieve.  Knowing when a student is ready to be taught the next step is a very important part of their learning success.
When I was looking at the 3rd grade standards that were passed out in class last week, I noticed that Hale had addressed a specific standard - 3.5.4 - Use varied word choices to make writing interesting.  The standards give an example of using varied words instead of the word said.  Hale also mentions this as a craft lesson on pages 206-207 and gives some variations of common words, especially for said.
I found Appendix F very good for giving me practice looking for strengths and possible next steps that the student is ready for rather than looking at everything that was "wrong" with the writing.  It is so important that we look for the good rather than the negative in students' writing and encourage them that they can be wonderful writers.

Crafting Writers, Ch. 1-6

The general focus of the first six chapters of this book was to teach us as future educators to begin looking at the art of writing itself.  We cannot teach writing to our students the way we were taught in school.  We need to teach the writing process, not just writing rules and mechanics. This book took us through the process of noticing a student’s craft, and then how to assist with word choice and sentence variety.

            I liked how the author started the book by comparing writing to cooking – both are an art and science where you use basic rules but there is also room for a lot of individual choices.  Explaining this to first graders may be complicated; however, if you use the author’s example of chocolate cake tasting the same everywhere you went then they may be able to relate to that their own experiences.  The author teaches us that writing craft is the more artistic side of this art and science.

            “Adding more detail” may describe what we want the student to do but it is not a next step.  We should teach our students to use details as they write and not adding them after the fact.  Asking questions for the students to answer for a specific topic may help for the moment, but we need to teach them skills that they can use everyday for adding detail.

            As I look at the student’s handwriting sample from last week’s class, I notice that the student’s writing is exhibiting extremely detailed images in only a few words.  He/she is also including adjectives such as “the most” and “so fast” in the writing.  I liked how the student drew a picture of the cheetah’s claw to help with the detail of the writing.

            Last week our class had the opportunity of visiting Mrs. Seabrook’s 3^rd grade class in Indianapolis.  One of the things that I enjoyed most was how she showed her personal journals to her class so that they could see that writing is something that they can do own their own and not just in school. 

            Now that I am familiar with what a writing craft is, I am anxious to complete the rest of this book so that I can learn how to teach craft lessons.

Week 3 - Sound Systems and Cusumano

I have to admit that I could have been that concerned parent in Cusumano's article that thought her son needed a CAT scan.  I first approached "creative spelling" like a child doing math and adding 1 + 1 and getting 3 and someday hopefully they would figure out that it equals 2.  I have to look at this topic with an open mind from two perspective's, one as a parent and one as a future educator.  As a parent I have to admit that I met with my child's Second grade teacher because I was concerned about her spelling - or lack there of.  She explained the creativeness that she was trying to instill in the students.  I took her word that she knew what she was doing and stopped correcting my child's spelling errors.  I have always encouraged my child to write, especially in a journal format when we go on vacation.  I have attached an entry that she wrote at the beginning of Second grade and then I had her write the same entry last night as I was curious just how much she was progressing through the stages of writing.  You can see that some of her spelling has improved.

Cried is now cryed instead of crid - and she knows when to use "when" versus "win."  The stage her teacher is working with her now is spacing between the words - she came home with a "space man" clothes pin this week to help in that area.  By keeping an open mind and trusting that the teacher knew what was best I have come to understand that that children do not start out with Algebra - they learn the process step by step - just as spelling is a step in the process of writing.

English can be a confusing language to learn as there are many different pronunciations for letters - such as long sounds versus short sounds.  Letter and sound relationships are a crucial part of knowing how to read.  Phonics versus whole word recognition can help in this matter and help to develop young readers who are not afraid of trying something new.  I agree with Lyon and Moore, page 95, when they stated that "the purpose of phonics is to help children as they read and write."  Furthermore, on page 118 they also mention that phonics is not a one-size-fits all program.  Assessment records can keep track of a child's progress so that the teacher can decide what strengths and strategies to build on for each student.  As a teacher's aid I found it important to pay attention to when the assessments were taken, 3:00 on a Friday afternoon is not a good time for an assessment.

Having had both personal and classroom experience, I feel like I will be able to put future parents' mind as ease as they notice the same misspellings that I noticed in my child.  I hope that by encouraging students to be creative with their writing that they will be more enthusiastic about reading and writing in all of their subjects.

Grocery Store Literacy Dig

My team went to a local grocery store to observe literacy in action.  My part of the activity was to observe and record the physical environment, draw a map - which you will see in class why I did not attend art school - describe the surroundings, and bring back artifacts.

Our first observation of the grocery store was that their entrance and exit doors were backwards from most stores.  Most stores have their "IN" door on the right and the "OUT" door on the left - as some of soon discovered, this store's entrance and exit doors were on the opposite sides.   So, even though the doors were labeled "IN" and "OUT", we still followed our instincts rather than notice the literacy signs in front of us.   The rest of the store seemed to be organized and made sense why items were placed where they were.  The signs labeled for the isles were accurate.  I liked some of the signs that stated "Need It" or "Don't Forget" throughout the isles.  There you could fine items such as can poppers and jar openers by the cans and jars of food - a very good marketing technique.

Since this was a small and local grocery store the physical environment was small.  Another observation was that the environment was very welcoming to a college town as there were sports logos and decorations throughout the store.  There were several signs that displayed "Homegrown Means Value" and emphasis was placed on their products being purchased in the U.S.A.  Another observation made was that the only sign in a language other than English was a sign that stated that customers were on surveillance camera in the beer and wine section of the store.  This sent our group a signal that if you were a consumer & this was the only sign in your language that it would be offensive.

Something that I noticed that I probably would not have unless I was observing literacy was a little game being played between two preschoolers in a cart.  One would say "tomato" and the other would say "tamato"; then, when they reached the vegetable isle they stared saying "potato" and "patato."

The artifact search was fun, I had never realized how much information that grocery stores have available for consumers.  My favorite artifacts were, of course, the recipes.  They also had helpful nutritional information in handout format as well.  One thing that I did take notice of was the all of information was only available in English.  This would be very frustrating if English was not your main language.  Some of the artifacts that I collected are shown below.

Overall this was a very interesting literacy dig.  It was intreging going to a normal everyday place such as a grocery store with an emphasis on observing literacy.  There are things that we take for granted everyday, such as sign postings and handouts, that we do not even recongize how much we depend on literacy in our everyday lives.